


among other things

by koalarin



Category: Original Work
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 11:08:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17243162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koalarin/pseuds/koalarin
Summary: It really is none of their business how they manage to make it work, but Scott can’t really tell them that. So instead, he just smiles kindly and gives them all the same answer: Libby isn’t really who they make out to be.





	among other things

Scott often gets asked, here and there, how it feels to date such a detached girl.

Most of them don’t mean it in a bad way, of course. It’s just all his friends and hers know she can be a little out of it sometimes. Libby doesn’t bother involving herself in many things and more often than not, she avoids people at all costs. She’s too different from him, they claim, like oil and water.

It really is none of their business how they manage to make it work, but Scott can’t really tell them that. So instead, he just smiles kindly and gives them all the same answer: Libby isn’t really who they make out to be.

What they don’t get is that he’s telling the most utter truth. Because even now, after so many months into whatever this is between the two of them, she still manages to throw him off the loop again and again.

Like in this instance, for example, where he has just woken up from a nap to find her painting a goddamn tree on the length of his arm.

He’s still so disorientated when he feels the tickle of brush against his lower arm that he doesn’t have anything to blurt out other than a simple _what?_

“Morning,” she greets him warmly, even though it’s probably five in the evening. “I hope you don’t mind. I saw an opportunity I could not afford to miss.”

He lifts an eyebrow at her. “You ran out of canvas or something?”

“Nope.”

“So what kind of explanation do I get?”

Libby stops painting and looks up at him for the first time. “Payback, maybe? Scott Winchester, you do not get to stop by my apartment only to take a nap and expect me not to do anything about it.”

Groaning in defeat and yawning at the same time, he runs a hand through his bed hair. “At least tell me you aren’t using your chinese ink.”

When he receives dead silence as a reply, his eyes widen and his jaw drops unattractively.

“Libby, I swear—”

“I’ll cook you dinner tonight,” she compromises instead and gives him a guilty smile before returning to her own dreamy state, painting the leaves blue one by one. Scott doesn’t even try to argue anymore. He just makes himself as comfortable as he can, huffing a disbelief laugh all the while.

There are many things that have endeared her to him, so many he’s lost count somewhere in the first half of this fragment of life called relationship.

As he mumbles sorry when she tells him to stop moving so much, he supposes this is one of them too.

::-::

Among other things, by now he has learned Libby’s fondness for Parker and Wren.

The three of them have known each other for years, way before he stumbled upon her life. Parker and Wren have been there for her through the hardest of times; being her rock and supporting her within every decision she’s made. They know Libby in some parts he is almost blind and understand her in ways he is still learning.

But rather than jealousy, all he feels towards them is just an incredible amount of thankfulness. After all, they play huge roles in Libby’s happiness.

Also, they have this group chat where they talk to each other constantly about the most random things, send ugly memes, and even record nothing but their laughter when words are no longer can be used and they are too breathless to type.

In short, it is lousy and chaotic 24/7.

It is what makes Libby let out a sudden laugh in the middle of their Lion King movie night in his apartment, startling him a little and making him turn to her only to be shown something on her phone. He squints his eyes and finds himself looking at a photo of Parker – being _Parker_ – sent by Wren as they’re having their impromptu night out.

He shakes his head a little, laughing, and she grins some more as she replies to Wren, before putting down her phone back on the coffee table.

Seeing how delighted she is, he kindly asks, “Don’t you want to see them instead?”

At the question, Libby frowns a little. “What do you mean?”

“I just—” he begins unsurely. “I know how much you love spending time with them. And, well, since you’ve started working, you don’t see them half as much anymore. I just thought that maybe because it’s your day off, you’d want to see them and… you know, just do things that the three of you always do?

“I mean I understand that you’d probably want to spend your free time with them rather than with just anyone so…”

When he finishes, he notices it’s because his voice trails off in doubt more than anything. Libby notices this too, which is probably the reason she sits up from her comfortable position on the couch, hugging the blanket to her chest and blinking at him several times like she always does whenever she thinks he’s being dumb.

“You’re not just anyone though,” she finally tells him casually, head slightly tilted to one side and he’s only so far gone at this point. “You’re – well, you’re _you._ ”

Logically, he knows very well that he is Scott Winchester, more than just a friend of Libby Jamison and maybe not so less than her lover. Less logically, he feels his insides turn themselves into an embarrassing pile of mess and mush when he learns that their mundane evenings like this one are just as important to her as they are to him.

“Oh,” he manages to say, rather stupidly, and almost lets out a small chuckle as Libby rolls her eyes. He’s not about to tell her that the smile she’s holding back fails her attempt to act indifferent.

“Yeah, _oh,_ ” Libby mumbles to herself as she turns herself into a cocoon made of warm blanket and a heart larger than life, returning her attention to the movie. “Besides, it’s getting to the good part anyway.”

He looks away from her to look at the scene where Simba meets Nala again after so many years of being separated, and he can’t help but agree.

It really is getting to the good part.

::-::

Grocery shopping is more of her thing than his.

It’s not that Scott hates it. He just can’t find the enthusiasm to stroll around in a place this troublesome and go to such lengths to find his needs when he can find them all in the convenience store only blocks away from his apartment.

Meanwhile, Libby finds enjoyment and small happiness in doing it. She really likes swaying from one aisle to another, comparing the same items of different brands all the while murmuring to herself whether it is worth buying or not, and getting everything she needs in her own relaxed pace.

He doesn’t get it really.

But here he is, agreeing to accompany her anyway. If he’s being honest, it’s mostly because he misses her quite a lot more these days and he’ll take whatever chance he can get to see her – even if it means he has to cope with all these horrible fluorescent lights and cringe-worthy music taste of whomever is in charge of the supermarket’s playlist.

 _That,_ and there’s also the fact that Libby is tremendously bad at differing fruit with good quality – all kinds, if he’s allowed to tell – from the bad ones, so at this point, Scott just kind of surrenders himself to her aide whenever she needs fruit supply.

He’s in the midst of pushing the cart and his boredom away at the same time when they stop at one particular aisle. Scott smiles to himself, fetched, as he focuses on what she’s doing. He never knows why she bothers looking at these boxes for so long when she never chooses anything other than honey stars.

And true to his predicament, she grabs two boxes of it and puts them into the cart.

He’s about to voice his thoughts when, to his surprise, she also takes a box of the only cereal she has always steered clear of despite his many attempt to make her try.

“Hey,” he says in confusion as she puts it into the cart. “I thought you hated froot loops.”

“I don’t hate it,” she replies sourly and then scrunches her nose in distaste. “I’d just rather not eat it. I don’t even know why it’s your favorite. There are much better cereals than this, you know.”

The deadpan tone she uses makes him want to argue that froot loops is _not_ that bad, and he’s sure he can get Kazu and Wren’s backup opinions for this one, but as the words register themselves into his brain, he freezes instead.

“Wait, you’re buying froot loops because _I_ like it?”

Libby sighs in a mixed of mild amusement and fond exasperation. “Why else would I be?”

Then, as if the conversation never happened, she continues going down the aisle for more things and absentmindedly starts humming to the god-awful song currently playing overhead.

He watches her growing further and further back, still in trance, and thinks that maybe tolerating and compensating for each other is, also, what love means.

::-::

There are some things in life that are inevitable.

Scott knows this well and has learned it in the most bizarre ways. You can plan, you can even try to run and avoid. But at the end of the day, things that you need to do will still have to be done anyway.

So when one night his mother called and asked about _the lovely girl you’re seeing, darling_ , he knew he had no other option but to say yes, fine, he’d bring her home one of these days. They’ve been together for quite some time anyway.

And Libby, in spite of her anxious-easy and tendency to second-guess things, agreed to meet his family – even though it took her a whole two minutes to function again and finally give him her consent after he had dropped the matter in the middle of their coffee date.

They’re in the parking lane of his house now, sitting in silence with the engine of his car still on. Even though both of their seatbelts are unbuckled, none of them seem to be making a move to leave the safety the car provides.

It is only when he sees his mother peeking from the window of the kitchen that he speaks.

“You ready?” he asks her, breaking the silence in the gentlest voice he’s ever mustered, because he knows that she understands as well as he does that there’s no backtracking after this.

Much to his amazement, she has her composure to the nines this time. Sure, he can see apparent nervousness in her eyes and slight tremors to the hands that rest on her lap. But there’s also this smile: the one she always wears when knows everything will go right in the end, the one he’s fallen over and over again.

“Well, I’m not sure,” she admits and they both let out a small laugh at the honest confession. But then she’s reaching for his hand and soon enough, their fingers are intertwined in a rather light hold. “But I know how important this is to you.”

Scott looks up from their hands, only to find her unwavering smile illuminated by the light from his dashboard lamp. She looks stunning tonight, what with courage and faith as her armor. But then again, she always does. He’s always known that.

He has the urge to thank her, tell her that this indeed means the world to him, and praise her for being much braver than she lets people on. Instead, he settles for squeezing her hand before finally letting go.

“You with me?”

Smiling back, he reaches for the door handle as he promises her, “And then some.”

Maybe they really are in it for the long run after all.


End file.
